Consider Yourself celebrate release of ‘Flesh Grenade’ at Aurora on September 8th

Rob Duguay is a native of Shelton, CT who has been a music journalist based in Providence, RI since 2008. Along with writing for What's Up Rhode Island, Rob also writes for the Providence alternative arts & entertainment publication Motif Magazine, the New England culture publication Take Magazine, the Boston online culture magazine Vanyaland and the national music publication New Noise Magazine.

There’s a sonic art to mastering the abstract. Sound waves bounce off of imaginary boundaries as if they were riding up through a cylinder into an infinite abyss. Providence trio Consider Yourself (formerly known as Two Brothers) exhibit these techniques with a particular style that melds progressive, math and post-rock to unleash musical fury. Their debut full-length album Flesh Grenade that came out on August 22 is chock full of variety and experimentation. Chris Walker on drums is a rhythmic machine gun with bassist Santino Tartaglia while guitarist James Langlais goes multi-dimensional with inventive chords, progressions and riffs.

These three electrifiers will be ringing in the release of Flesh Grenade at Aurora in Providence on September 8 with Boston experimental pop act Bat House, Western Massachusetts prog punks Oroboro and RISD fuzz makers Los Waves. Local booking entity Gimme Noise is also putting on the whole thing. “It was self produced, we wrote it all ourselves”, Tartaglia explains on the creation process. “Other than our friend Charles Larson playing sax, we also played everything you hear on the album.”

“That was a two year in joke”, says Tartaglia about the album cover. “The picture on the wall was taken as a joke by our friend Mike. At the time, we joked that it should be our album cover. As we got close to release, we came up with the idea to put it in a frame on a wall and we just loved it. We think it’s fucking hysterical.” The album was recorded at Big Nice Studio in Lincoln, RI by Bradford Krieger of the progressive noise band 14 Foot 1.

“This One’s For You, Baby P” is a minute-long introduction that starts off jazzy and then gets increasingly distorted as each second rolls by. Getting heavy and rambunctious is “The Wein-O-Rama Debacle That Was My Life” while serving as an excellent example of Langlais’ multi-dimensional skills on guitar. It could very well go down as one of the best song titles in Rhode Island music history. There’s something stunningly hypnotic about “Date Night Hockey Fight”. It starts off being ambient and then it builds up to a seismically loud display of shredding.

Don’t forget to grab a physical copy of Flesh Grenade when you head to Aurora on the 8. It’s definitely worth the price of whatever Walker, Tartaglia and Langlais decide. For now, give it a listen and stay amped until the show starts.